My “ride” with Lance

 

I was taken aback when a bed & breakfast guest asked me one summer if I wanted to ride bikes with him.

 

Me? I hadn’t ridden in years. But I had been spinning on an exercise bike at a gym. It uses the same muscles. Why not?

 

That experienced bicyclist literally left me in the dust on the dirt trails on our farm. But I thought, “I may be 57 years old, but I can do this!”

 

I rode around our neighborhood in Arlington and then I began commuting the 6 miles to work in Washington. It was incredible! There were bike trails all the way and I didn’t get on roads until the last two blocks. I rode over Memorial Bridge and past the Lincoln and Washington monuments, where I ruined more tourist photos as I passed by! Then I went up the Ellipse and to my office only two blocks from the White House.

 

I didn’t have to wait to board buses, I didn’t get stuck in traffic jams, and I avoided crowded subways. It made the two worst hours of the day into the two best.

 

At my office building, I took the freight elevator on hot days so I wouldn’t stink up the passenger elevator. There was even a shower on the ninth floor.

 

I became more productive at work. I slept better. I did’t have to go to the gym anymore. After I biked up a steep hill on the way home, my family was impressed when I arrived sweaty and out of breath.

 

Pretty soon I rode on weekends, too. I thought I would stop biking when I retired, but instead I found the Thursday Bike Group of retired cyclists who navigated the Washington area every week. I think the real reason they met was for the lengthy lunches.

 

And in the South Boston area, I have ridden in recent years with Walt Hampton, Lee Sandstead, Ray Weiss, Bob Plapp, David Hudson and others. We have traveled both on roads and the Tobacco Heritage Trail. (I haven’t ridden much in the past six months though because of a sore knee.)

 

When. the Tour de France rolls around every year, I watch it on TV, marveling at these amazing athletes and the beautiful routes they take. Wouldn’t it be great to ride with them?

 

No wonder the high point in my bike riding came in 2009 while I was handling my mother’s estate in Placerville, Calif. Her next-door neighbor, an avid cyclist but 20 years younger than me, suggested we go and see the Tour de California. We loaded our bikes on his car and headed the 30 miles to Sacramento.

 

I was thrilled when the sponsors of the race let anyone ride the course just before it began. Because it was a “time trial,” the race was only a circle of downtown streets over just a few miles. We got a feel for zipping past hundreds of onlookers, imagining ourselves in the Tour De France.

 

As we rode off the course later, we encountered a group of riders warming up. Wait, can it be? Really? No, it couldn’t be! It was Lance 

Armstrong, the seven-time Tour de France champ, though later disgraced for his use of drugs. We rode alongside Lance! For just seconds, anyway. As he and his Postal Service team were warming up, we accelerated as fast as we could, but he quickly lost us. Still, our Tour de France fantasy pretty much came true!

They enjoyed this disaster? How could that be?

 

I wasn’t going to write a column about the Blue Ridge Rock Festival though I was immersed in it all weekend. It was too depressing. I only write good news.

 

“Oh, you must write about it. Tell everyone about the good things, not the bad,” said a bed & breakfast guest, Korey Schroeder, from Springfield, Mo.

 

 I was thinking: What is good about spending thousands of dollars to come to a remote place like this and endure long waits and terrible storms, only to be sent home? More than half the audience was complaining of an apocalypse on a Facebook page, “Screwed by the Blue Ridge Rock Festival.”

 

“Oh, tell them about how much we liked the South Boston area,” she said. “When the concerts were cancelled, a lot of us found this to be a cool little place. Everyone was super friendly, and we especially enjoyed the wineries, Tunnel Creek, Woodbine, and the Springfield Distillery. Everything is so close, in proximity.” They found other displaced concertgoers making the best of a cancelled festival, enjoying themselves at World of Sports, Mexico Viejo and other locations.

 

There are thousands of complaints on the Facebook site about long waits for buses, overflowing toilets, impossible parking, water shortages and poor communication.

 

But Schroeder says, “We got there on Thursday and saw two bands before the storm. We were there all day Friday and had few issues. I think everyone realized it would be delayed Saturday, and we were able to mosey around local areas and find stuff to do. It’s a good economy booster for you guys.”

 

Personally, I was so glad not to be there. But most of our guests were philosophical, not angry, “You can’t’ do much about Mother Nature,” said one.

 

Our guests did see some improvement from 2022, when there were hours-long waits for buses to take them from the parking lot to the venue. A guest in a wheelchair found service for the handicapped considerably improved. Food was more plentiful, and things were more organized.

 

But that all fell apart when the unexpected storms came through and evacuation was chaotic.

 

Most of our guests left a day early, and we gave them a refund for one night. Refunds of tickets have been promised, as well, though that is sure to be complicated.

 

The consensus at the breakfast table the last morning: The festival, if it continues, should be smaller. Fewer bands and fewer fans would be easier to handle. Does it really need to be “the largest rock festival in North America?”

A kind, graceful way to get fired

 In the olden days, paperboys delivered the day’s edition right to your door or driveway in many towns. Before newspapers were dropped off in mailboxes, young carriers used to ride bicycles, artfully tossing heavy missiles of paper and ink onto front porches.

 

As a paperboy in the 1950s, sometimes I missed the porch and broke a window. People were understanding and didn’t cancel. How could they, when the newspaper was one of the few sources of news?

 

In El Cerrito, Calif., I had 25 customers for the Oakland Tribune. After school and on Sunday mornings, the guys would assemble at a converted garage to get our newspapers, fold them and get a pep talk (or brow beating) from the district manager.

 

As a 12-year-old, it was an exciting challenge, to get the papers delivered on time, collect money at the door like a grown-up and try to sign up new subscribers. We weren’t employees, we were independent contractors. Wow! (That meant the publisher was free from child labor laws and didn’t have to pay overtime.) They should have hired girls, too, but they wouldn’t.

 

When we moved, I dropped my route, but I started another years later as a junior in high school—a big one with 40 customers and a broader territory with a lot of hills. I wasn’t doing it for the challenge—only the money to buy records and other essentials. When I suddenly remembered missing someone’s house, I would just figure: “Aw, who cares?” and forget it.

 

One day when the manager, Al, saw me, he said, “Mike, you have had another complaint. This does not look good on my books. I don’t know what we are going to do. I want you to think about whether you really want this job and tell me next time we are here.”

 

I thought about it, and the next day when he came by, I said, “OK, I will quit my route.” And he seemed mighty pleased.

 

Looking back, I think that was such a kind, gentle way to get fired. He could have just given me the axe and demolished my teenage ego. I don’t know what he would have done if I wanted to keep the job.

 

Fifty years later, I was confronted with a part-time contract employee for the Kiplinger California Letter who wasn’t pulling his weight. As my Los Angeles correspondent, he told me, “Not much is going on.” What? Nothing is happening in the nation’s second largest city? O.J. Simpson, Charles Manson and Rodney King live somewhere else? My reporter didn’t really need the money—he was an experienced media professional who had just lost interest.

 

“Why don’t you tell me if you really want to do this. Think it over and then let me know,” I told him. He finally quit. No hard feelings. No damaged ego, I think.

 

Al, my old newspaper manager, did a good deed for me, and I passed it on. 

 

Thanks, Al!

 

 

Just the facts, ma’am. But what are they?

 After over a half-century in the news business, I am often asked about news today.

 

 Everyone is critical of the media in some form or another. It’s almost unanimous: It is too opinionated…unless it conforms with MY opinion.

 

I have to admit the idea of objectivity may be out of date now that politicians are better able to manipulate the news. You used to be able to write: He said this, she said the opposite. The reader decides who is right. That was usually my approach.

 

But what if speakers are uttering outright falsehoods? Do you quote them on that? There isn’t always time to doublecheck the facts. I’m glad I am not involved in that anymore.

 

It doesn’t always work to feature news on both sides in a political campaign. I recall a time when a Democratic candidate for president made big news. AP’s general desk asked me in Washington to come up with a Republican event to balance it as one of the top stories of the day. All I could produce was President Nixon’s daughter updating plans for her wedding. They got equal billing.

                                                                                                                     

Another problem: the choice of the topic picked. Do you focus on the environmental benefits of a new air pollution rule from the government? Or do you write about the added expense to businesses?

 

What I read: Besides the local papers, of course, I read the Washington Post and New York Times. Though they are among the most thorough publications around, they have a decidedly liberal bias. Sometimes I look for other outlets to get another point of view.

 

How about TV? I don’t know about you, but I hardly ever watch TV news. The best way to increase ratings is to get viewers worked up and mad at each other. You’ve seen those panel discussions where people keep interrupting each other. My blood pressure is already high enough, thank you!

 

I remember going a couple of times a week to Sentara hospital for cardio rehab after having a stent placed in a blocked artery about five years ago. At first, I understand, they had the TV tuned to Fox News. Then they switched the TV to old reruns of “the Andy Griffith Show.”

 

I asked someone in charge about it. “Oh, heart rates were just getting too high,” she said.